In a classroom of 30 children, six will miss at least one day of school every two weeks. That’s the reality for one in five children persistently absent across school classrooms in the autumn and spring terms so far this academic year. This picture is worse for the most disadvantaged.
At ImpactEd Group, we have been running Understanding Attendance, a large-scale national research project to investigate barriers to attendance and the strategies that might make a difference. Our first set of , shared last year, shed light on factors such as the importance of belonging and the transition point between Year 7 and Year 8.
Focusing on transitions or belonging is vital, but we want to go further to help school leaders take impactful action at a more granular level. This is why we are digging deeper with the next iteration of our research.
This next stage of Understanding Attendance is guided by three key insights:
1. Age, stage, time: importance of comparing like with like
At the risk of stating the obvious, attendance is an issue that is profoundly influenced by the stage of education. Across both measures of social and emotional engagement, and attendance itself, we see significant drop offs in the later stages of primary school and early secondary school.
To help schools take informed action, they need to contextualise their work accordingly - comparing their data to similar age ranges and by pupil characteristics.
It’s particularly important to get beneath the headline attendance figures - the factors that influence a child attending school 30 per cent of the time are not necessarily the same as those for a child attending 85 per cent of the time.
This nuanced approach to analysis will be taken through this new project, helping drive more informed action. Sticky data will be benchmarked against data from the time of year and across years as well, making it more readily comparable.
2. A holistic view
Challenges often arise when there is a disconnect between a school’s intended actions and how they are perceived by various stakeholders. This is why we will be delving into parents’ views on attendance and will be sharing new insights on this soon.
Additionally, based on feedback from our initial research, the updated Understanding Attendance project now uses a diagnostic questionnaire focused on three domains: family and home environment; school environment; and adult and peer relationships.
This is because attendance cannot be viewed in isolation: it needs to be triangulated with pupil and parent perspectives and consider both the home and school context.
Across these domains, we will be looking at some of the more practical factors influencing attendance such as whether children are getting enough sleep; if they are able to get ready independently; do they have breakfast; do they have clean, well-fitting uniform; what their behaviour in the classroom is like; parental attitudes to attendance; and whether the children receive rewards from school or their parents for good attendance.
Participating schools will receive tailored reports to help them take action on these factors in their context.
3. Playing the long game
Although there are green shoots, the reality is that attendance is a sustained effort requiring significant time, energy and resource. Cumulative attendance takes a long time to shift. But we have seen first-hand the value of celebrating the small wins and building positive momentum around attendance.
For example, one school in the project focuses heavily on comparisons of week-to-week and month-to-month attendance rather than over terms or year-to-date in reporting to pupils and families. This approach enables positive trends and smaller wins to be celebrated in real time.
By the same token, we are now focusing on how we can share strong practice between schools participating in the project on a regular basis, helping them celebrate the actions that have had an impact as those wins arise and gaining inspiration from others as they go.
For schools trying to address the root causes of pupil absence, ensuring the right data is being collected to drive evidence-informed decision making can help target attendance support and communications that will best meet the needs of young people.
We know absence is sticky - if we can utilise insightful data to break negative trends, the net positive impact on attendance can be huge, giving every child a better chance to succeed.
To join the research on attendance, get in touch at: hello@impactedgroup.uk
Owen Carter is co-founder and director at ImpactEd Group
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